


Red On Your Hands

by Spoodlemonkey



Series: Inktober/Goretober [15]
Category: NCIS: New Orleans
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Blood, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Possession, Violence, magical reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 09:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12504716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoodlemonkey/pseuds/Spoodlemonkey
Summary: "Don't go taking any risks Christopher.""You know me King," he grins, touches his hip lightly. It's all the PDA they can get away with at work. "I always look before I leap.""Yeah, but then you leap anyways."





	Red On Your Hands

Day three into a case investigating a dead petty officer and they finally catch a lead. King sends them of them to check it out, called into a mandatory meeting with the Mayor, someone he's been putting off and putting off until it finally comes back to bite them in the ass.

"Keep me up to date." He rests a heavy hand on Christopher's shoulder, squeezes. Gregorio and Percy have already headed out to the car, he's pretty sure that means they've ganged up on him and he gets the back seat for the drive out. It isn't the best for leg space. There's only one time the backseat is ever fun and that's when it's just him and King and they're both off duty. "Don't go taking any risks Christopher."

"You know me King," he grins, touches his hip lightly. It's all the PDA they can get away with at work. "I always look before I leap."

"Yeah, but then you leap anyways."

"I guarantee Percy is worse."

"You're just lucky she's not here to hear you say that." King drops his hand with a fond smile. “Now get going."

 

::

 

The area they're checking out was recovered from their dead petty officers GPS, something they weren't able to access sooner as it had come from a soaked phone and Sebastian hadn't thought he'd be able to get anything from it. It pays to have their own tech genius on the team.

They swing by and pick him up from the lab and follow the GPS to the edge of the city.

Katrina hit this area pretty hard, and judging from the abandoned buildings and boarded up windows, it never recovered.

A few houses are still lived in but the majority of the still standing homes are shells of their former selves, hollowed out and left to rot. He doesn't think he was ever assigned to this beat, probably scooped up by Pride before they could ship him out here with the undesirables of the city for his temper and frayed nerves. He can't imagine what Gregorio sees when they roll slowly through the old neighborhood, hub caps and garbage making for a mine field on the cracked pavement. He hopes she doesn't think of her ex when she sees the dilapidated homes, doesn't feel the guilt that falls squarely on that man’s shoulders for the area falling into ruin.

"That one," Percy points to a string of two story homes, paint cracked and faded, windows smashed in, yards overgrown. Clearly no one’s lived here in a long time. "26, Petty officer Waller’s last stop."

They don't have a murder scene yet, her body had been dumped by the water, days after her death. Hopefully this will give them something they can work with.

"Gregorio, Sebastian take the front, Percy and I will go around back." In case they get lucky and their murderer is hiding out here.

They pick their way through the front yard, the knee high grass and garbage collecting there, ducking the dirty Windows. The back yard is in worse shape, a child's swing set rusted and listing to the side. There's a path through the grass though, worn like someone's been coming and going a lot.

He has his gun out. Waits for the others.

The door slams open in the front and he kicks open the back.

Percy leads, gun up, clearing the kitchen they find themselves in, and moving to the dining room off it. Floor boards creak ominously beneath them. Dust rises up, disturbed by their boots. He notes the grime covering the table, counters, cobwebs covering the dining table as they head through.

"Clear," Percy finds the stairs, leads the way up. If there's anyone home they're silent, well hidden. They search the bedrooms on the second floor but find nothing except a life clearly left behind in a hurry. Family photos, still in their cracked frames lay where they've fallen on the floor. The windows are broken and glass crunches under his boots as he peers out into the back yard.

As far as he can tell, no one’s there.

Down below comes the sound of something heavy falling.

“Gregorio?” Percy hurries back down the stairs.

“Fine!” She calls back. “Sebastian knocked over a book.”

Christopher huffs out a laugh, and holsters his gun. He turns his attention back to the bedroom he’s standing in. What could their Petty Officer have wanted here?

He pokes around, eyes scanning for anything out of the ordinary. There’s less dust up here than expected, spaces cleared away like maybe objects had stood there before. Even the mouldy sheets on the bed look almost too fresh, largely free of dust like the rest of the room. Chances are someone’s been squatting there, maybe they ran into Petty Officer Waller, either as a witness or the killer.

Percy hasn’t come back up, and it’s pretty quiet down below. Christopher leaves the room, wondering if the others have gone to grab the forensic kits from the car. Hopefully they’ve found something more useful than what he’s found. If they have he can try to canvas the area, figure out where their squatter could have gone to ground.

His boots are heavy, loud on the steps.

“Find anything?” He glances out the front door but doesn’t see anyone by the car. He sticks his head into the living room. Sebastian’s staring into the fireplace, doesn’t seem to have heard him. “Sebastian?”

He jerks, obviously distracted, and glances over at Christopher.

“Where’d you come from?”

“Upstairs.” Christopher ignores his tendency to zone out, peering over his shoulder. He doesn’t see anything in the ashes but maybe there’s something he’s missing. “Where’d the others go?”

“Others?” Sebastian repeats. He looks a little glazed.

“You alright Sebastian?”

“Fine.” He stands abruptly. “We should find the others.”

“Right,” Christopher eyes him, a little worried that maybe too many hours in the lab has made him _snap_. He follows the other man regardless towards the dining room. There’s no one there, or in the kitchen. Worry is niggling at him, a bad feeling creeping up on him. He peers out at the back yard but he doesn’t see anyone there either.

“They’re in the basement.” Sebastian says, holding open the crooked, wooden door. There’s a little landing leading down a precarious looking set of stairs with a bare bulb lighting the way.

“Perce?” He calls down. There’s no reply. “Sebastian I think we should call Pride,”

Something shoves him _hard_.

He doesn’t remember much of the fall.

 

::

 

He doesn't know how long he’s out. Awareness filters back to him slowly. It doesn’t feel like there is a part of him that doesn’t hurt. It varies from a slow, throbbing ache, ramping up to _excruciating_ when he tries to lift his head. He squints, vision blurred. He wipes his face, groggy, and his hand comes away sticky. He can’t make out anything from where he’s lying. He struggles to sit up and nearly screams at the tearing pain that rips through his gut.

The world fades out for a long moment as he lays there panting, gagging and trying hard not to throw up all over himself.

“LaSalle?” He blinks, focuses on the voice. He slowly tilts his head, gritting his teeth at the stabbing pain. It takes him a moment to find her. Gregario’s sprawled on the floor nearby, nose bleeding, teeth bloody. He can’t see much else of her, hidden in the shadows as she is, but she’s not up and moving so that’s not a great sign.

“What happened?” He groans. They’re in the basement as far as he can tell. He can hear another voice in the background, murmuring something indistinct.

“Sebastian.” He follows her gaze to find Sebastian crouched over Percy. He’s got an old book open on the floor, but Christopher can’t make out what it says. He can’t see much past the deadly looking butchers knife in Sebastian's hands.

“Sebastian!” Christopher jerks upright, bites back a scream at the searing pain it sends through him and holds onto consciousness through sheer will. “What are you doing?” He gasps.

The other man’s head snaps up, staring him down. There’s something wrong with his eyes, glinting behind his glasses. He moves quickly, faster than Christopher can track right now, scurries over on his hands and knees and _shoves_ , pushes him back against the concrete floor hard enough that his teeth rattle and his vision greys out.

Someone is screaming. He recognizes it as Gregorio after a moment. Sharp, burning pain flares bright along his chest. He forces his eyes open as Sebastian cuts through his shirt to the skin underneath. His hands fly up but he’s too weak, scrabbling at Sebastian's hands, trying to keep him off of him. It’s like he’s fueled by adrenaline, Christopher’s touch barely making a dent as he drags the knife across his skin in long, thin slashes.

He screams.

“Down here!” Gregorio yells and Christopher can’t make sense of it until a moment later King comes stomping down the stairs, gun raised. He doesn’t hesitate, shoots Sebastian in the shoulder, makes him fall back, hissing and spitting. The knife clatters to the floor next to him, covered in Christopher’s blood.

King swings, hits Sebastian with the butt of his gun and the man drops like a stone, unconscious. He doesn’t stop there, goes straight to the book, drops some sort of powder on it, then holds a lighter to the pages. The resulting flare up lights up the basement for a brief moment before the book is gone, turned to ashes in under a minute. He stares as a black fog seems to lift from it, disappearing into the shadows of the basement.

Christopher is delirious from pain and blood loss, he’s pretty sure he hallucinated the whole thing.

“Tammy, you alright?” King calls out.

“Broken leg, ribs. I’ll be fine.” She groans, pushing herself into a seated position. Winces. “Make that a broken nose too.”

“Christopher?” King kneels next to him, cups his face, makes him focus on him.

“Percy?” He rasp, his vision greying around the edges.

“Unconscious, but she’s breathing.”

He chances a glance down and wishes he hadn’t. His chest is bleeding freely, not too deep but deep enough that it throbs and isn’t clotting. His breath comes quicker, the pain and fear catching up to him.

“I’ve got you.” King soothes. “Paramedics are already on their way.”

Despite his best efforts he doesn’t manage to stay awake until they get there.

 

::

 

He's stuck in the hospital for the foreseeable future with internal bleeding, broken ribs, lacerations to his chest and a pretty nasty concussion that makes the world spin far too often for him to ever be comfortable.

King stays with him though, sleeps in the visitor chair next to his bed, refuses to crawl in with him while he's still so banged up, but holds his hand through his night terrors, whispers soothing words, helps him get through the first few nights.

“There’s something I haven’t told any of you,” King takes his hand the first night when he’s able to keep his eyes open for more than five minutes. He scoots the visitors chair as close to the bed as he can get it. “And I should have, so this is on me.”

“What happened _isn’t_ on you.” Christopher argues as fiercely as he can doped up on medication and in pain.

“I should have prepared you all better.” King shakes his head. “Hear me out first.”

Christopher isn’t expecting to be told _demons_ are real. Had anyone else told him, or at any other time he might he been disbelieving. But there’s no humor in King’s expression. And Christopher knows without a shadow of a doubt that that had not been Sebastian.

What sleep he does manage to get that night is filled with terrors like he’s never experienced before. When he wakes, face wet with tears, King’s there, holding him, anchoring him to the present.

On the second day Percy wheels Gregorio into the room. The former managed to get out of there with only a slight concussion and some bruises, while Gregorio ended up with a broken leg and nose, and cracked ribs. It's a relief to see them upright. He can't quite get the hug he wants from them, none of them are in the best condition for that, but it helps him relax just knowing they're alright. The shadows under their eyes tell him how well they’re dealing with it and the haunted expressions that linger let him know that they’ve probably had _the talk_ too.

It's not until the fourth day that Loretta delivers Sebastian to his room.

He basically has to be shoved through the door and into the visitor's chair next to Christopher’s bed.

“Talk.” Loretta orders them. “And then we’re going to see Tammy.”

They both watch her with wide eyes as she leaves the room, taking King with her. The door is closed firmly behind them. He turns his gaze on Sebastian. The other man isn’t looking great, pale skin, shadows like bruises around his eyes. His arm is in a sling and Christopher hopes there isn’t any lasting damage. There's a spectacular bruise blooming across the left side of his face. He won’t meet Christopher’s eyes.

“You already talk to Percy?” Christopher clears his throat, extends the olive branch so to speak and prays that Sebastian takes it.

He nods. “Yeah, Loretta thought it would help.”

Christopher narrows his eyes, knowingly.

“And she’s upright and has probably been trying to bust into your room to tell you it’s not your fault.” Sebastian opens his mouth to protest but Christopher barrels on. “And she’s right. Hell if I could get King to let me out of this bed I’d have dragged my ass up to see you too and tell you the exact same thing.”

“Okay, but it _was_ me.” Sebastian protests, his gaze bouncing over Christopher and then around the room. Down to his hands. “It was _my_ hands,”

“Do you remember any of it?”

“Just picking up that book,” Sebastian stares down at his hands, brow furrowed like he’s trying to force the memories. “And then waking up in the ambulance. If I could just remember,”

  
“Don’t.” The steel in his voice surprises them both. He grabs Sebastian's wrist and doesn’t let him flinch away from the touch. “You don’t need to force those memories, you don’t need them. This wasn’t you. King’s talked to you right?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian lets out a dark laugh but doesn’t pull away. “He says I was possessed. I don’t know how I’m supposed to believe that, like maybe it was a hallucination brought on by the mold in the house.”

“It wasn’t.” Christopher says, remembering the strange glint to his eyes in the basement.

“How am I supposed to live with that? With any of this?” His gaze is pleading when he meets Christophers. “Knowing I did all this to you.”

“Doesn’t look like you have much choice in the matter. Cause we still want you around.”

Something in Sebastian’s stance eases a bit at the reassurance like maybe he’s been needing to hear this. Christopher will tell him over and over again if it gets him to listen.

Sebastian stays for another ten minutes before Christopher starts yawning, despite his best efforts, eyes drooping. King ducks back in after he’s left, taking his customary spot next to Christopher’s bed. He reaches out, brushes his fingers along the back of his hand, gaze warm, concerned.

“How’re you doing?”

He thinks about lying, playing everything off, that he’s alright now and he’ll be alright later.

He’s only punishing himself if he lies though.

“I need you.” He admits quietly, voice rough. He feels suddenly overwhelmed, throat tight, sore, eyes stinging.

King doesn’t hesitate this time, doesn’t worry about the wires connected to him or that he might hurt Christopher accidentally. He carefully climbs onto the bed next to him, curls up against his side and holds him as he shakes apart.

Hopefully after he’ll be able to start piecing himself back together.


End file.
